Mass Effect: Nemesis
by Quod Vide
Summary: This is set in Mass Effect 2, continued to AU ME3.  Lots of changes, hopefully for the better.  Follow Matt and Nicole Shepard as they work to fight the demons they see everywhere.  My muse for this story is on holiday.  ON HIATUS!
1. Prologue

Prologue

_Tuesday, April 11, 2166_

_Mindoir Colony (Alliance)_

Nicole Shepard sat in the waiting room, her head down and her shoulders slumped. She knew what the testing would come back with, she knew that it would be positive. Had known for years, known what it would mean if anyone found out. They would pack her up and send her off to BAaT, and she would probably never see her mother or brother again. Her father, she could do without, but Shepard knew that she could never live without mommy, could never have survived without Matt. It had all started innocently enough: Shepard had decided she wanted to be a Quarian when she grew up, and started taking things apart in that way that kids are wont to do. She was only eight at the time, of course, and figured that smashing the old miniature mass effect core she had 'borrowed' from the reclamation center would be a good way to see what was inside. There was only one problem: being only an eight year-old girl, and a scrawny one at that, there was no way she could even lift the sledgehammer she had found. So she called on her twelve year-old brother to help and managed to convince him to hit the thing, wrapping him around her little finger as always.

As it turned out, Matt did manage to smash the thing open: he had started playing in the middle school football league on Mindoir and had bulked up considerably. And it also turned out that the impact forced a plume of element zero dust to waft out, coating both Shepard and Matt. Though Shepard didn't really know what the pretty dust meant, Matt immediately threw her into a nearby pond and then jumped in himself, telling Shepard to scrub herself clean. When they had both been thoroughly cleansed, Matt sat down and explained to his little sister that the dust was Eezo, that it made people sick and gave others biotics. Shepard thought the whole thing was very cool, and hoped she could learn to lift things with her mind like an asari. That was before Matt explained the fate most biotics could face. When both she and her brother began to display biotic powers, they agreed to hide it, telling no-one, and practice in secret so they could keep their powers under control.

But when Shepard saw the poor little stray being kicked and beaten by a group of boys, she couldn't hold herself back. She charged them, and when they pushed her down it felt like something just tore out of her, and they were staggered back. They ran home to their parents, and Shepard did the same. The next day, her parents dragged the three Shepard children to the clinic for testing, despite the fact that little Serrie was only four years old. Matt's results had already come back: positive for biotic abilities, and positive for inoperable brain cancer. Her parents had cried, but Shepard just felt numb. '_This can't be happening'_ she thought '_Matt can't be sick, he just can't be. How can my life fall apart in just a few short hours?'_ When the doctor walked into the waiting room with a grim expression on his face, Matt put his arm around Shepard's shoulders, lending her his strength even though he was the one who should be needing the help.

The day that should have been one of the happiest days of the year, the day that Shepard was supposed to get a new omnitool, or a model ship, or a new book... Shepard found it almost surreal that she was instead getting her greatest secret broken to her parents, that they would know she was a biotic. Her birthday gift was the destruction of the life she had once known. The doctor sighed, and said "I'm sorry, but-" he was cut off as large explosions sounded even through the thick windows. The entire Shepard family rushed to the window along with the doctor just in time to see the last of the debris that had once been the comm station floating down. They all stood in stunned silence for minutes, simply staring at the destruction before them. Shepard's parents didn't know what to do: they were just techs, after all. What could they do against the horde of batarian ships they saw swarming the sky? Nothing. Nothing, except take their children and try to hide.

But they were too late, had spent too much time gawking at the destruction. Shepard's parents were cut down trying to fight the batarians, and Serrie was killed for being too young. When Matt tried to fight back, actually managing to knock one of the batarians into a ragged piece of metal with his biotics, the leader of the group in that area decided to 'teach him a lesson'. Though they couldn't damage him too much, as a biotic was too valuable a slave to kill, Matt's screams echoed throughout the ruined city as they each took turns with him.

There were two things Shepard would always remember from that day. One was how Matt held her and promised her everything would be okay.

The other was the hollow look in his eyes as he was hauled away from her forever, and forced up the ramp of that batarian ship.


	2. Chapter 1

_A/N: Hey everyone! This is my first fanfic, so please R&R. Anything is helpful. This is just my take on a different way Bioware could have taken ME2 and beyond. I will be (hopefully) posting about a chapter a week from here on in, though of course real life occasionally pulls a fast one._

_**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Mass Effect, Commander Shepard, or any other original Mass Effect characters or concepts. Those belong to EA. My original characters and ideas, though? Those are mine.**_

Chapter 1

_Wednesday, February 28, 2176_

_Elysium (Alliance)_

Shepard bit off a curse as a round slammed into her shoulder and penetrated her armor, sending a set of alerts beeping in her Heads-Up-Display. The suit dispensed painkillers and medigel into her bloodstream as she dove into cover. "Shit! Shit shit shit shit shit shiiiiiiiit!" She hissed out as the pain slowly subsided. She took a quick glance around, looking for what was left of her unit. '_Dammit, this wasn't supposed to happen! This was supposed to be a cushy bit of shoreside, and now half my squad's dead! Jackson, Nickles, Herb... and Jason... Where the fuck is our air support!' _ Shepard had lost her helmet somewhere in the mad scramble to get into armor and get out into the fight and now her shoulder-length blond hair swung freely, framing her pale face and sharp features. While by no means a classic beauty, Shepard's looks were the envy of many, though she had a reputation for being an 'Ice Queen' that kept most suitors away. The biotics deterred the rest. Shepard popped up from cover as her shields finished recharging and snapped off a quick headshot on an approaching batarian, dropping back into cover as she reloaded.

"Birte! You're in command! Get the squad back to the Hilton, barricade yourselves in and keep the civilians safe!" Shepard shouted, her mike having been lost with her helmet. When Quentin Birte just looked at her uncomprehendingly, she yanked him into her face by the collar of his armor and screamed her orders at him.

"But Shepard, what about you?" He asked when he finally understood what she wanted.

Shepard simply looked at the approaching batarians, and then back to her squad, the five of them that were left. She shrugged, and switched from the sniper rifle to an assault rifle, and then let a biotic barrier shimmer into being over her form.

"I'll hold the line."

-

_Monday, February 28, 2185_

_Normandy SR-2 (Orbit over Klendagon, Hawking Eta, Century System)_

Shepard jerked awake, sitting up abruptly and reaching for the pistol on her nightstand. When she realized that it was just the dream again, she sighed and let her hand drop to her side. Every year without fail she woke to the same nightmare, starting on the twenty-eighth. Each night, she relived a different portion of that horrific twenty-seven hour struggle, each night equally unrestful, each night equally painful. Some years it took weeks for the nightmares to finally start to fade, and some years she was lucky and only had a few days. The shrinks the Alliance had sent her to after the Blitz had been concerned about her health: with her Spectre clearance Shepard had finally been able to look at her own psych reports. Apparently the docs had thought that Shepard was a borderline psychopath: her lack of reaction to the death that she caused and that she saw was indicative of a psychosis. Remembering this, Shepard snorted. '_What, just because I didn't want to tell them that I woke screaming every night, that every time I closed my eyes I saw the faces of my squad, dead because I wasn't good enough? I didn't need their pity.'_

A quick glance over at the chrono on her nightstand, and Shepard sighed again. 0400 hours. Her alarm had been set for 0600, but Shepard knew that she would not be able to go back to sleep that night. So, resigned to another long day scanning planets for resources, she pulled the datapad from it's usual place under her bed and flicked it on, scanning the reports it contained. '_Hmmm...'_ She thought, '_Perhaps we shall stop by Citadel after we've got enough resources, see if we can get that Thanix Cannon that Garrus was talking about installed. Probably should also pick up this Kasumi character, like the boss says. Woe to any who don't do exactly what Mr. Man says.'_ After a few minutes of crunching figures in her head, Shepard let out a rare smile. '_Actually, if Klendagon's got enough Iridium on it we might be able to make this our last stop. Best bit of news I've had in a while.'_ That settled, Shepard pulled up her Omnitool and accessed her automatic extranet feeds. Since the Normandy wasn't running silent, she had up-to-the-minute updates on all of her areas of interest. A couple of reports that the Hero of the Skyllian Blitz and Savior of the Citadel was running with Cerberus, a few claiming she was seen buying an asari slave on Omega, no hits on any 'Kasumi Goto', no hits on Mirand Lawson, and... no hits on Kaidan Alenko. At least, nothing recent.

Shepard couldn't help but wonder what Kaidan was up to. Probably some secret mission for the Alliance, as always. The thought of her best friend and lover, though enticing, wiped the smile from Shepard's face. Who knew what he would think when she showed up at his door, wearing a goofy smile and a Cerberus logo? As far as Kaidan had known, Shepard was dead. Shepard knew that if anyone pulled that on her, she'd rip them a new one and kick them out on their ass. But part of what made Kaidan so perfect for her, she thought, was how much calmer and kinder he was. Oh yes, Shepard certainly had a soft, nougety center but she wore a mask of death for when anyone was watching. It wasn't hard, getting that cold look in her eyes she was so famous for. Hell, even her nickname 'Frost' was a part of that mask. And when the soft chiming noise that signified someone was at her door sounded through her room, that mask fell into place as Shepard stood and put on some sweat pants over her underwear. Framed in the blue glow of her fish tank, she strode swiftly and purposefully to the door, forcefully ignoring the framed picture of Staff Lt. Alenko on her desk. She hadn't figured out yet who had put that thing there while she was recruiting Dr. Solus on Omega, but she hadn't the heart to put it away. When she approached the door, it opened, revealing Garrus Vakarian standing calmly before her.

Garrus was, in many ways, Shepard's rock in the troubled times she found herself in. When all else was in doubt, including her own sanity, Shepard knew that Garrus would always be the calm at the center. He was also the only one from her old squad she had managed to get a hold of, even if it was an accident. Shepard gave Garrus an appraising look, and then quirked an eyebrow and afforded a smirk, though her eyes didn't feel it. "Long night?"

Garrus simply nodded, and chuckled a little. His eyes were slightly bloodshot, and his clothes were rumpled as if he'd been tossing and turning all night. "Was it night? Damn, my body could have fooled me. I haven't had a second of sleep at all, and finally finished that book you sent me... Just got done recalibrating the forward batteries, had a cup of Hef, sat and stared at the wall for a while... I figured that you'd be awake as well." He paused and then shrugged, deciding it was better not to dance around it. "Today of all days, yeah?"

Shepard smiled at Garrus's description of his night, and winced as he mentioned drinking the Hef. Heffusine is a fruit from Palaven that can be dried and then mixed with water or the Turian equivalent of wine to make a powerful stimulant similar to energy drinks for humans. Shepard didn't like the fact that it seemed Garrus was surviving only on the drink: he seemed to be up at all hours doing _something_. Extended use of any stimulant for any species was not healthy, and Shepard made a mental note to ask Dr. Solus what he knew of the stimulant's effects. When Garrus mentioned what day it was, however, Shepard's smile faded and the little bit of her true self that she couldn't help but let slip around a member of her old crew disappeared. "Yeah." Shepard said shortly. She didn't really know how to respond to that, and so she just let the silence stretch on for a few moments. She was on the verge of saying something just to break the silence when she saw the slightly awkward stance Garrus had taken and realized she was standing just inside the doorway and Garrus was standing in the cramped entrance hallway to her room. Shepard recovered her manners and said "I'm sorry, Garrus, would you like to come in?"

Garrus started at her words, having begun to stare off into space, but after he took a moment to process them he nodded. "Yeah, thanks..." He followed Shepard into the room, and when she sat on her bed he began to pace back and forth, getting his thoughts together. Shepard waited patiently, knowing from experience that it took Garrus a while to get ready to speak when it was about something he felt strongly. He finally stopped pacing and smoothed his simple grey tunic a little, before taking a large breath and beginning. "You remember, back on Omega, I said I had a team? It was me, eleven others... We were all fed up with the corruption of the law systems, and sick of the rampant anarchy we saw on Omega. We banded together, formed our own group, to take on the crime lords and merc kings. Small time at first, a drug bust here and there, a few... disruptions. Just as we were really starting to make progress, it all went wrong." Garrus sighed, and sat down on the corner of the bed opposite from Shepard. He ran his hand down his face, and then shook his head.

"One of my team, a turian named Lantar Sidonis, betrayed us. He lured me to a fake meeting, and while I was gone our entire team was killed. There weren't even bodies left by the time I made it back. Sidonis fled Omega that day, and I had all three of the merc groups right on my ass. Because I wasn't fast enough, because I didn't see that Sidonis was a lying, treacherous bastard, because I fell for his trap, my entire team died! Good men and women, all. What do I tell their families? How do I tell them that I killed their son, their husband, their sister?" Garrus fell silent.

Shepard let the silence ring for a couple of seconds before quietly saying "You mean, how did _I_ do it." Her voice was flat and emotionless, and though Garrus said nothing, he didn't dispute it. "Garrus, you simply have to tell them the truth. Tell them that Sidonis betrayed you, that he laid a cunning trap and you fell for it. But Garrus," Shepard said softly, sliding to sit next to him and putting her arm around his shoulders "it is _not_ your fault! This is Sidonis, not you. I know more than anyone what guilt and regret can do to you, and you don't need that when you don't deserve it. Leave that to the people who are responsible, and-" Shepard was cut off as the comm system in her room came online.

"Sorry to wake you, Commander, but there's something up here that you might want to check out." Joker's voice rang from the intercom, and Shepard nodded before standing. "Understood." She replied, her mask back on, all business once again. "Well Garrus, when Joker gets that tone in his voice it's a good sign that trouble isn't too far off. Hop in your armor and meet me in the cockpit in ten minutes, and bring Mordin with you, okay?" Shepard moved to her armor locker and began to pull out the Blood Dragon armor she preferred. "And Garrus," Shepard said, as she heard the rush of her door opening, "think about what I said."

*****************************************************************************************

Joker sighed as he cancelled the vid feed from the elevator. Though Joker didn't have the nearly unlimited camera access that he did in the SR-1, he still had enough to know what was going on in his ship. When Garrus went up the elevator to Shepard's quarters at 4 am in the morning, Joker had sat there debating with himself whether or not he should do something, as he once had nearly three years ago with Shepard and Alenko. Finally, Joker decided that it was his duty to his pal Kaidan to be sure it didn't even appear like something was happening. He knew Shepard would never betray Kaidan, but... Who could say what Cerberus had done to her? "I do not understand your motivation for waking the commander, Lieutenant Moreau. We discovered the anomaly several hours ago; you decided to wait until the commander woke on her own to tell her." Joker simply shrugged, and turned to hit the mute button once again, wincing a little as his thumb hit the button a little harder than he had intended. Then, knowing the damn AI could still hear him, Joker said "Sometimes, EDI, our goal should not be to understand, but to accept. Think on that." He hoped it sounded sagely wise enough to keep EDI occupied for a while.

"Lieutenant Moreau, that does not answer my question."

Joker sighed. No such luck.


	3. Chapter 2

A/N: Hey guys! Managed to get this chapter finished a little early, with the help of Pandora, so I figured I'd post it up for y'all. It's a bit longer than the last one, and I am planning them to slowly reach about 6000 or so words a chapter. These intro chapters are going to be shorter, as they are sort of setting everything up and have a lot of dramatic places to end the chapter. Enjoy!

_**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Mass Effect, Commander Shepard, or any other original Mass Effect characters or concepts. Those belong to EA. My original characters and ideas, though? Those are mine.**_

Chapter 2

_Monday, February 28, 2185_

_Klendagon (Hawking Eta, Century System)_

"What the hell is this place?" Shepard shouted as she ducked under the leap of a rushing varren and whipped around to place a few assault rifle rounds into its back. As it crumpled she threw a biotic warp at the mech that she saw appearing around the corner, smashing its head against the railing. She couldn't even see Garrus or Mordin through the swarm of bodies she found herself in. It was a combination of enemies she had never thought to see together: varren, mechs, batarians, humans, and even a few asari, all berserk and all attacking as if in a bloodrage of some sort. The screams of pain and rage from her enemies filled the air, and Shepard couldn't help but shudder at the pure _wrongness_ of the sound. After a few more minutes of intense fighting, Shepard saw Garrus put a round through the skull of the last varren, and she dropped her last mech over the edge of the walkway and to the roiling mass of death below.

"Miranda, what the fuck is going on here?" Shepard all but screamed into her mike. "What is wrong with these people? Why would Cerberus even do this? What is the gain?" After Shepard received only silence, she reiterated. "Operative Lawson!"

"I'm sorry commander, I was pulling up the files. Give it a... second... to load." Miranda's voice trailed off, and Shepard could almost hear the woman thinking '_shit, oh shit, oh fuck me, fuck me sideways.'_ Miranda cleared her throat and then said "Here it is. Project Heracles, seeking to develop some sort of artificial Krogan Bloodrage for use on foot soldiers who are wounded. To keep them fighting past what their injury would normally allow." Miranda paused, and then said "There's also a secondary objective, but I do not have the proper clearance to view it. Perhaps, Shepard, you should come back to the ship and I will notify Cerberus Comm-"

Shepard cut Miranda off with a sharp "No." Miranda had tried to convince Shepard to simply finish gathering minerals and leave the distress call Joker had found for others to find; Miranda had argued that their mission was time sensitive and they didn't need the delay. Shepard had wondered why Miranda wouldn't want her to save a Cerberus research facility, and had indeed asked Miranda for her reasoning when just three days ago Miranda had convinced Shepard to investigate the Cerberus signal coming from Aite. And boy wasn't that an adventure. Shepard figured there was something in the base Miranda (and therefore The Illusive Man) didn't want her to see. That was worth the effort just to stick a wrench in their plans. "Lawson, we've already discussed this. By the time they got here, there wouldn't be anything left, and there might be people down here who need our help. If you don't have anything else to say, keep the comm clear." Shepard shut down the link to the ship and switched back to the squad channel.

Shepard took the opportunity to rest, leaning her elbows on the railing and looking out over the huge arena-like space she saw below her. It appeared that the enemies they were facing were only the few that had been contained in the lab area attached to the ceiling of the cavern the facility filled, while on the floor of the cavern about a hundred feet below was a much more open area where most of the subjects were housed. It seemed almost like one subject was more important than the rest: the door that presumably led to it's cell was much thicker and sturdier looking than the others, but Shepard didn't see a Krogan or Rachni, or anything that should merit such reinforcements so she assumed it was still locked up. That was, of course, until the varren almost hit her in the face.

The corpse sailed up from the melee below her, propelled by a biotic push, and slammed into the walkway, rocking the narrow structure. After Shepard recovered, she called Mordin and Garrus over. "Guys, check this out." When they stood next to her, Shepard pointed out an area of the floor very near to where the varren had taken flight. "What do you see there?" She waited a few moments for them to see what she meant, and when Mordin said "There is someone down there not in a rage. Very strong. Or fast, good fighter at least. Biotic, but no guns. Cerberus troops? No, no guns. Scientist? No, too skilled... Hmmm." She nodded. There was a spot in the wild melee that had been, briefly, clear of enemies and it had revealed to her a human was slowly working towards an open hallway that looked to lead up, fighting with great skill those who got in the way. "Looks like we might have found someone who can tell us what's going on here. Let's get down there and see if we can't give this person a ride."

As she began walking towards the elevator, Shepard heard Garrus mutter "Well, Shepard, it's a guy, I can tell that much through my scope. Just hope he's friendly, he's really tearing those guys apart." Shepard shrugged, and said "Me too, but if he's not there's nothing we can do about it. We'll just have to see what happens when we get down there. Keep your sniper rifle ready though, Garrus." Garrus simply nodded and said "Always, Shepard." The ride down was mercifully short, and when the doors chimed to announce they had arrived on the ground floor and then opened, Shepard and her entire squad were startled by what they saw before them.

Slowly backing up the slight incline of the hallway was a human man, very heavily muscled and with a shaved head. He was wearing a very tattered simple white shirt and Shepard could see many bloody scratches and punctures through the numerous holes in it. The man's pants were in better shape, but not by much, though it did seem that he didn't have as many wounds there as on his torso. The man's arms, on the other hand, were covered in blood of all colors, mixing together to form a very dark purple sheen that almost literally encompassed his entire forearms. The reason for this amount of blood soon became apparent, as Shepard saw a glint of metal and spray of blue blood from a turian. The guy seemed to be wielding two bladed tonfas, and he was good. He slashed out with one, then spun the weapon around to deliver a quick jab to the head of a mech, while at the same time his left was gutting a human who was screaming hysterically. The move left the fighter momentarily open in the front, as both of his hands were out wide, but a biotic shockwave emanated from him as he screamed, throwing the group of people in front of him back. Though shocked at first by the sheer amount of bloody carnage she was witnessing, Shepard soon pulled her sniper to the ready and added her skills to the mass, and she heard Garrus do the same beside her. When she did not hear the retort of Mordin's Shurikan SMG along with the sharp crack of the two rifles, Shepard took a quick glance to the side while reloading, seeking the salarian professor. After half a second she saw that he was furiosly typing on a nearby screen, occasionally glancing over at the door at the end of the hallway.

The loss of fire from Mordin being occupied was barely noticed, however, for the battle dynamic was entirely different from the usual wall of lead Shepard liked to employ with her current team. Instead, the man fighting in close combat held off the bulk of the group trying to get past, slicing his weapons easily through flesh and bone to send body parts and blood flying everywhere in a dance of death Shepard couldn't help but find beautiful. The man, though heavily muscled, wasn't the bulk of a weight-lifter but rather the sleek lines of a gymnast or swimmer. His arms moved so fast as to almost be a blur, sweat flying off, while his knives became swirling metallic circles of death as he switched back and forth between grips without any apparent effort, each arm working independent of the other. Those few who slipped around the sides were caught by either Shepard's or Garrus's sniper fire, and when an enemy tried to take advantage of the openings inevitably caused by the mans frantic defense, a biotic shockwave or a warp would pulse out, knocking them away and buying time for the fighter to recover his composure. When the large blast door at the end of the passage began to close, the fighter changed tactics. Instead of the frantic weaving defense that had been working so well he began to push forward _into_ the wall of bodies, ducking and sliding and slicing and stabbing and spinning in an elegant dance of death that left the remainder of the enemies on the floor within minutes.

The man stood there, still in the slightly crouched ready stance that showed he was prepared to fight, his back to Shepard and her squad. After a few moments, he relaxed, and the weapons slipped from his grasp. "Shit, Shepard," Garrus said, hushed awe in his voice, "I've got him down for twenty-seven kills, just in the time since we got here. Be careful, this guy... I don't even know." Mordin, for once, was silent, still furiously tapping away at the screen in front of him. Shepard took a couple of steps forward and put away her rifle, only confident enough to do so because she knew that Garrus would put a bullet in the guy's skull if he even thought about attacking. "Now who spiked the eggnog, right?" A smile found it's way onto Shepard's face. She couldn't help but delight in bringing violent death to her enemies, even though she knew that these people weren't really in their right minds. Shepard removed her helmet to get a breath of fresh air and because she knew that facing a polarized helmet could be intimidating, an affect she did not want to have on this guy.

When the man turned to face Shepard, she froze. Something in his face reminded her of times she tried so hard to forget... And then she was running, throwing herself into the man's arms at full tilt while Garrus and Mordin looked on in confusion.

*****************************************************************************************

It had finally happened. After nearly two years of waiting, of biding his time, he could almost taste the freedom. They had finally made a mistake, as he had known they would. Oh, yes, it was a small mistake to be sure, but it was enough. He didn't know whether it had been a bad batch, or if someone had forgotten to put it in, or if something else was at work, but the drug that had both sustained and imprisoned him had finally worked it's way from his system after an excruciating ten hours of pain and sweat. For the first time in a long time, he could think clearly, without the rage clouding his mind as it had before. And with this newfound clarity came the notion that Cerberus was getting _careless_. The two years of him being little more than an animal had dulled the fear and suspicion they had first displayed, and he knew that it would not be long before an opportunity would arise. An opportunity _had_ to come up: he refused to take that drug ever again, no matter what. If he couldn't escape before the match, he would simply not fight. If that was what it took to finally be free, so be it.

It had been nineteen years since he had been ripped away from his family by the batarians, and every waking moment of those years was spent in pain. Broken bones from the overseers at batarian slave camps, where he was worked until he broke, physically or mentally, wounds from fights, punishment wounds, the control chip in his brain... He spent a long time in a sort of fugue, his will to live broken by the suffering he had endured. A biotic was a prize catch for the manual work camps: though they required more food to survive they could do the work of ten or more slaves. Soon after being captured, the slavers had implanted an L2 biotic implant without anaesthetic. That was just the beginning, for after a few months of back- and mind-breaking manual labor he was bought by a lower-bottom noble caste for gladiatorial fighting. He spent several months being trained in the use of the strange weapons his master chose for him and eventually began fighting. At first he fought simply to fight and tried to drown his memories in the blood of his opponents, but his biotics and slowly returning drive to live meant that he managed to become that most rare of creature: a veteran of the gladiatorial fights. Batarian custom set forth that if any slave managed to remain undefeated, and therefor alive, for twenty years that he would be retired, and allowed to take a position as a guard to his master for however long he lived. Though rare, it had happened in the past and it gave him a reason to fight beyond 'because they tell me to'.

Then, suddenly, there was a bright light at the end of the tunnel. Cerberus approached his master in 2183 about purchasing him. From what he heard, they offered an obscene amount of credits, but despite that his master refused. He was too valuable a fighter to sell for any price. So, Cerberus broke into the estate on Khar'shan and stole him out in the middle of the night. He didn't know what Cerberus wanted with him and though he was very skeptical of their intentions at first, the fact that they immediately removed the control chip and also allowed him to keep his weapons convinced him they were simply there to rescue him. They explained to him about the Reapers, about the remarkable anonymous woman who repelled the attack on the Citadel, and all that had happened in the past seventeen years. They showed him images of the reaper, and of the commander who defeated it, told him he would be instrumental in insuring that no others would ever threaten the galaxy again. He was ecstatic, finally he was about to be free!

How wrong he was.

Turned out that Cerberus only wanted him for their sick experiments. He wasn't told anything, just strapped down to a table and operated on, injected, cut, pinched, pulled... When he finally woke up he could _feel_ the change in his biotics. The power wasn't quite so slippery, was much more intense. And he could feel the change in his body, the speed of his reactions and the strength of his limbs. Since the moment when he had first woken up, he estimated that 653 days had passed when the chance to escape finally came. It was a simple thing, a clear mind, but it was enough.

He acted the same after eating the food and realizing what had happened, tried to attack the scientists as they dropped his weapons through the slot in his door, spent the next twenty minutes beating on his door as usual, screaming and growling and subtly looking through the small viewing grille in his door. When he figured the time was about right, when most of the eggheads had already vanished up the passage to the viewing area but there were still a few left setting up the finishing touches to the arena, he made his move. He entered the code he saw the scientist enter onto the pad on his door, and was out the door and onto the scientists in a flash. They were dead before they knew what hit them, and he was very pleased to note that the one who had 'rescued' him from the batarians were among the dead. On the man's datapad he saw an interesting option. It said "Purge". That sounded like the perfect thing to him, purge the blood, purge the scientists, and then get the hell out.

Unfortunately, "Purge" didn't mean what he thought it did, and the many cages both around him and up in the viewing area burst open, letting out the frenzied opponents he usually fought ten or thirty at a time in their hundreds. They immediately began fighting with each other, with him, with the scientists. He found a defensible nook that had only one way in and settled down for an extended fight, knowing that his endurance would wear thin long before their numbers did, and taking solace in the fact that he at least took down the scientists with him.

Several hours later, he was disappointingly not dead yet. He had rather hoped to be felled by some lucky shot after maybe an hour or two, rather than the slow death by attrition stealthily creeping for him. He was seriously considering giving his jugular a quick slice, just to end it on his own terms, when he saw the corpses beginning to fall off of the walkway. Taking advantage of a pause in the melee he looked up, and was very surprised to see three figures mowing their way through the enemies against them. When they began to make their way towards the elevator, a flower of hope blossomed into being in his chest. Perhaps if he could manage to make his way to the elevator he could convince these mysterious figures to take him away from this place. It was a hope he clung to with a dead man's grip as he began to slowly gain momentum, using his biotics to create spaces where he could get running, spinning in between fighting people, leaping over wrestling crazies, and slinging enemies every which way.

Finally he made his way to the hallway and saw the enemies begin to fall around him, though he himself had not touched them. The distinctive "bam-bam!" of a skillfully wielded sniper double-tap sounded on both sides of his ears, and within minutes the door to the hall was closed and the enemies before him were either dead or soon to be. He almost couldn't believe it, almost couldn't grasp that there was nobody left to kill. A soft, smooth voice sounded behind him, saying "Now who spiked the eggnog, right?" He slowly relaxed, muscle by muscle, and felt the energy supplied to him by adrenaline and desperation leave him. It was all he could do to turn and look at the woman who had saved him, and to his surprise it was the Savior of the Citadel herself! Just as he was trying to figure out how to respond to that, if he could even formulate a coherent sentence, the woman suddenly charged him, slamming into him with a hug so tight he felt his broken ribs slide across each other. He looked down, opened his mouth and said "Wha-" Before exhaustion and injury overcame him.

Matthew Benjamin Shepard fell into unconsciousness, with the face of the strange woman following him down into his own personal hell. 

_A/N: I'm betting more than a few of you guys saw that one coming near the beginning of the chapter, but for those who didn't I hope the reveal was dramatic enough. Still working out how exactly my writing style works. Sometimes I want to write something one way but it comes out another... That's life for ya, though. Questions, comments, suggestions? Pop a review or send me a message and I'll see what I can do!_


	4. Chapter 3

A/N: _Hello! I just wanted to put a word of thanks out to RayneEthelwulf for being my first reviewer, and thanks also to everyone reading this story. Before I continue I would like to say that there will be quite a few changes and deviations from the canon story, so do not always expect to know what comes next. Thanks!_

_**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Mass Effect, Commander Shepard, or any other original Mass Effect characters or concepts. Those belong to EA. My original characters and ideas, though? Those are mine.**_

Chapter 3

_Thursday, March 3, 2185_

_Normandy SR-2 (En Route to Citadel)_

Matt regained consciousness very suddenly, snapping awake in an instant with his body on high alert. Every muscle was tensed in preparation for movement, but he tried his best to keep his breathing slow and even. He didn't know who or what was in the room with him, but he could hear a whispered conversation going on somewhere in the room. The sharp tang of metal and disinfectants wafted into his nose, and he knew he was either in a med bay or a lab of some sort. Matt shifted ever-so-slightly and felt the familiar friction of restraints, though to his surprise they weren't made of the reinforced carbon-fiber he was so used to. In fact, they seemed to be the regular hospital pleather restraints. Matt was sure that he could break free of those with little problem if the need arose. He then went instantly still as he heard the conversation move closer to him. It sounded like two women were arguing with each other: one was the savior of the Citadel. She was saying "I don't care! If he wakes up with those damn things around his wrists who knows what he's going to think? Hmmm? He isn't a prisoner!" The other woman replied, her voice much calmer "I understand, but nonetheless I must insist that he remain detained until Yeoman Chambers can assess his mental state. Despite what you may think, he _is_ a danger to this crew and it is my job as CMO to-." She stopped talking, and Matt could almost feel her eyes on him. "He's awake."

_That's my cue._ Matt reacted to that voice instantly, snapping the restraints on his hands with a quick jerk and then reaching out to quickly undo the ones around his ankles and waist. He didn't know where he was or who these people were working for and he didn't want to be helpless when he found out. As his eyes swung to look at the shocked faces of the two women, however, he saw something that instantly enraged him. "Cerberus!" He roared, his voice taking on a double timbre like a turian's as his biotics flared to life around him. The woman in armor was knocked back into the door by a blast of energy and Matt grabbed the doctor by the neck in one hand and held her in front of him as a shield. With the other hand he grabbed the top of the doctor's head and twisted it to the side, just past the point where uncomfortable becomes painful. After a few seconds, though, Matt had to let her feet rest on the ground: it seemed he was not yet fully recovered and he couldn't quite hold her up on his own. "Cerberus," he hissed. "Savior of the Citadel, Hero of the Skyllian Blitz... You have sunk to this?" The woman opened her mouth to reply, slowly drawing her pistol, but Matt cut her off. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't kill you all. One." The woman opened her mouth to reply but was interrupted once again as the doors behind her opened.

Twelve Cerberus soldiers poured in, along with the turian and salarian from earlier. None were in armor aside from the turian, but they all had weapons trained on Matt. "Stand down!" The woman shouted as she stood. "Matt, calm down, let me explain!" Matt eyed her suspiciously, and turned to doctor's head even further. "How do you know my name?"

She looked at him, and then put her pistol away. "You don't recognize me? At all?" Matt simply shook his head. "Your name is Matthew Benjamin Shepard. Born April 2nd, 2150. Captured by batarian slavers on my twelfth birthday. It's me, Matt. It's Nicole." Matt stared for a few seconds, his face impassive, before spitting out a single word: "Horseshit!"

Shepard took a step forward and said "When I was nine you taught me how to do long division, and when I finally got it I was so excited that I accidentally threw you into the wall with my biotics. We had a hard time explaining that to mom, didn't we?" Matt didn't know what to think. He had been sure that his sister was dead, or was at least hoping that was the case. Better dead than captured by the slavers like he had been. And there was this woman, a warrior, the Savior of the Citadel... She was so different from the innocent little kid that Matt had clung to all those years. But, under all of the changes he could see his little sister in the shape of her chin, those bright green eyes, that straight blond hair, now almost white. After a few more moments of silence and then Shepard said "Matt, it's me. Please, let the doc go. We have a lot of catching up to do." He could hear the pleading, the longing in her voice for the brother she had thought dead. He nodded slowly and released Chakwas, moving almost as if pushing through treacle. When the doctor moved away from him the soldiers relaxed and at a look from Shepard filtered out, though two of them stayed in the room, as did the turian and salarian.

After the soldiers left, Shepard walked swiftly to her brother and wrapped in a bear hug so strong that the constant ache from his various injuries sharpened into a stabbing pain that made him gasp, even as he hugged her back just as hard. "Nikki." He breathed. "Little sister, I had hoped you dead. This is even better than I dreamed." Then, however, his brain took over and he pushed her away, a strange look coming over her face. "Though I am, to put it simply, quite surprised that you would ever work for a group like Cerberus. I couldn't even begin to list all of the horrendous things that went on inside that lab." Shepard frowned at that, and said "Two reasons, really. One: Cerberus brought me back from the dead to fight the Reapers, and are funding my mission to stop the Collectors abducting human colonies. And Two: The Alliance and the Council pushed all that had happened with the Reapers and Sovereign under the rug, said it was just a myth used by Saren to control the geth." She paused and looked to the two Cerberus soldiers left. "Cerberus is about the only group willing to do anything about it."

Matt thought about that for a few moments silently, his face impassive, while Shepard looked on and bit her lip. "Sister, I trust your judgment. I know you won't do anything immoral, no matter who your funding comes from. But, I _will_ be watching everyone on this ship very carefully. As far as I'm concerned, the only thing keeping me from ripping your hearts out with my bare hands is my sister. Something to keep in mind."

At this the female Cerberus officer huffed and said "I'd like to see you try. Besides, Shepard, do we really need to take him along? Why can't we just drop him off when we hit the Citadel tomorrow and let him find his own way?"

The turian chuckled dryly. "Yeah," He said, not even looking at the officer, "that's a great idea. Leave him on the busiest station in the galaxy with nothing but a 'hey, nice to meet you' and just fly off to go save the day? Well, I don't see how _anything_ is wrong with that plan." Shepard eyed the officer for a moment and then said "No, Miranda, he'll be staying with us. Besides what Garrus said, he's my brother. I'm not just going to leave him somewhere. I haven't seen him in nineteen years, and I'm not giving him up that easily." Miranda seemed to accept this, but she sure didn't look happy about it. "Jacob, take Matt up to the armory and get him fitted out with armor and weapons. He'll probably know what he needs, right Matt?" Matt just nodded, and hoped they had some _very_ light armor. The black Cerberus officer bobbed his head. "Commander." He beckoned for Matt to follow him and as they left the salarian introduced himself. "Mordin Solus. Happy to meet you, presence of family member very beneficial for mental health of Shepard. Good in fight, too. Look forward to working with you." And he slipped out ahead of Jacob and Matt. Matt saw his sister talking to the doctor, Chakwas, through the window to the med bay as Jacob led him to the elevator, and noticed that the turian was still in the room, simply standing and watching Shepard.

Miranda sighed as she stalked into her office and sat at her desk. She had tried everything, but Shepard had been so adamant, and Miranda couldn't push too hard or she'd lose what little of the Commander's trust she had. It didn't help that now Shepard always took Garrus and Mordin, and maybe also Jacob or Zaeed on her missions. Not once since recruiting her old squad mate had Shepard taken Miranda on a job. When Miranda had subtly questioned her about it, Shepard had said that 'one of us needs to be aboard the ship at all times, and as the XO of the ship you are more suited to that than anyone. Maybe I'll take you next time, if I can.' That had been back on Omega. All throughout the situation on Aite, and on Purgatory, and on Omega after Garrus had been recruited, Miranda had stayed on the ship. She was supposed to be earning Shepard's trust, but how could she do that if she was never given the chance?

Miranda looked at the clock and realized that nearly an hour had passed while she had sat at her desk, musing and planning. She had to give a report on this to the Illusive Man, and she sighed as she keyed up the quantum entanglement transmitter embedded in her desk. She didn't need to select a recipient: the device only worked with one receiver. After a few seconds, the familiar back-lit form of her boss shimmered into view on her desk. "Operative Lawson. You have news?" The Illusive Man's distinctive voice sounded the same as always; either he hadn't yet heard or he was playing his cards close to his chest.

Miranda nodded, and immediately launched into her report. "I was unable to convince Shepard to avoid the Heracles base, and she recovered her brother from the labs. He shows understandable hatred of Cerberus, but he trusts his sister. Unsurprising considering the fact that she was basically his one hope for almost twenty years. Maybe because of their period of separation, I was also unable to convince Shepard to leave him behind. I... am sorry. I failed." Miranda hung her head, ready for the reprimand she knew was coming. Miranda was very unused to failure, in anything, and on the rare occasions when it did happen, the Illusive Man had been very displeased.

Instead, however, he simply smiled. "Good." When Miranda looked up, surprised, he said "Things are going according to plan. Did you honestly think that I would let the brother of Commander Shepard escape, under any circumstance that I didn't dictate? Come now, Miranda, have a little faith." He took a drag of his cigarette, and exhaled a smoke ring that uncannily took the shape of the Citadel. In the years Miranda had worked with him, she had never figured out how he managed to do that. "See what you can do to draw the Shepard siblings closer. I want them inseparable. And keep an eye on that Vakarian. He's a variable I don't know too much about, and that is dangerous." His image shimmered, and then vanished.

Miranda sat there for a few moments, and then shook her head and stood. _That man is something else. Everything is just another piece of the game to him. Thank god I'm not one of the pawns._ She had seen enough instances of what happened to the pawns when they had outlived their usefulness.

Matt sat on the couch in Shepard's room, listening as she filled him in on everything that had happened in his absence. Unlike when telling the story to the council, or even when telling it to Anderson, Shepard left nothing out. She didn't hide her relationship with Kaidan, nor did she omit all of the hard decisions or irritating politics that she had to work through. At the end of her tale, Matt could not help but be impressed with the person his little Nikki had become. She was a fierce fighter, a compassionate leader, and had made tough decisions that needed to be made. Sometimes, she had to do things that pricked at her conscience, but still she did what needed to be done for the good of all. However, there was one thing he could tell was bothering her.

"So, when do I get to meet this guy of yours, huh sis?" He said. He kept his tone light, but he was watching Shepard very carefully. When she didn't reply, he nudged her a bit. "Sis?" Shepard sighed, and stood so she could start pacing back and forth in front of Matt. She had learned that habit from their mom when she was little, and it pleased Matt to see that there was still a piece of her in there somewhere. After a few seconds of simply pacing, Shepard shook her head and turned to face Matt, a look of indecision on her face. "I don't know..." Matt waited for her to elaborate, which she eventually did. "I... He's not here. I haven't contacted him since I woke up. I just- I don't know how he'll react to me being with Cerberus. We destroyed so many Cerberus operations together back when we were hunting Saren, saw so much of their sick experiments. If I was him, I would wonder what they had done to Nicole so they could control her." She sat down again abruptly, letting out a breath quickly. "I'm afraid, Matt."

Matt took Shepard's hands in his own and looked her in the eye. "Sis, let me tell you something. I have been a slave for nineteen years, forced to kill people just because some batarian scum told me to. I do not know about love, or even about life. All I know how to do is kill. That is who I am." Matt waved aside Shepard's protests, and continued. "It's true. I hope that I can learn to live someday, but for now I accept who I am. You, though, are different. You are not a killer. You are a soldier, a hero. You are the representation of everything good humanity has to offer, and you are going against your own sense of right and wrong to save everyone. Not just yourself, or your friends, or even just humans, but everyone, down to the last mud-covered bit of scum. If Kaidan is the person you say he is, he knows that, and he'll trust you and love you no matter what. If not..." Matt sighed. "Nothing is simple. But if he doesn't trust your judgment then you are better off without him."

Shepard shrugged. "We'll see. I hope he'll understand, but with the way my luck has been so far..." Shepard looked up, and punched her brother in the shoulder lightly, considerate of his injuries. "I'm honestly surprised you're up so soon. After fighting like that for hours, and with the wounds you sustained Dr. Chakwas expected you to be out for another two days, at least." Shepard paused and then asked softly. "Brother, what did they _do_ to you?"

Matt took a deep breath, trying to keep his mind from treading the well-worn paths of his memory. He didn't want to _think_ about all he had endured. He had blocked those memories behind walls of anger and death, and he didn't want to dredge them up again. What they had done to him... "Simply put, Nikki, I don't know. New implants, for sure. Gene mods of some sort. Cybernetics. Other stuff too, stuff I couldn't understand. And that's just Cerberus. The batarians... I started as a menial labor slave, but they saw my biotics as a waste there and so my _master_" Matt spat the word as if it was a curse, "decided to put me in the pits. He had one of his bodyguards train me in the use of the tonblades, for a more iconic look, and then threw me in to be slaughtered like the rest. But I managed to survive long enough to get noticed by Cerberus. I thought they had come to rescue me, at first. Ha, what a joke. I know in my head that not all batarians are evil, but whenever I see one or even think about one I just want to rip their four-eyed heads clean off! What they did to me... What they made me do..." Matt fell silent as he realized he had stood and was flickering with biotic energy. He took deep breaths and managed to force his emotions back under control after a few minutes. "I'm sorry sis. It's just... For the first time in what feels like forever I'm free. Thank you. No matter how far you have to go, no matter what you have to do, no matter who you have to work for, I'm with you. Always."

Shepard stood and hugged her brother, tears glimmering at the edges of her eyes. "Thank you. I lost my brother once, long ago, and now that I've found you I am _never_ letting you go again." Matt nodded, and left. Shepard sat there for a long time, thinking on how times had changed, staring at the framed picture of Kaidan. She had still not figured out who had put it on her desk after Omega, but she was thankful to them, whoever it was. It was the one thing she still held onto as sane in the universe. _Kaidan will be with me soon. As soon as I can figure out where you are, I am coming to find you. I am barely holding together as it is, mostly thanks to Garrus. I need you, Kaidan._

_Citadel (Widow System, Serpent Nebula)_

Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko sighed as he eyed his mostly untouched glass of Serrice Ice Brandy. It was an expensive drink, but he didn't really have much else to spend his paycheck on. Especially since he hated alcohol and never actually drank the damn thing. It had been two years. Two years since Shepard had died, since the part of him he hadn't even known existed died with her. Life was going so well, despite the looming threat of annihilation on the horizon. Shepard had said she loved him, they were finally together after so many weeks of hand-wringing on his part. And then they had sent her to fight the geth, and now she's dead. Kaidan sighed and drained the glass before slinging his bag over his shoulder and leaving the bar. He felt the headache began to assail him as he walked through the garishly lit corridors of the Citadel to his ship. Another colony where the people would sneer at him, despite him simply wanting to protect them from whatever was taking them all. Another week of forcing his presence on a barely tolerant colonist family. Another week without Shepard, and without the Red Sand to help melt away her memory.

Kaidan absently twisted the ring in his pocket as he walked. _Why did you have to leave me, Shepard? Just when things were looking up, when my life had finally pulled itself from the muck, you had to up and die on me. I needed you, Nicole._

Matt took several deep breaths as he walked down the short hallway leading from Shepard's door to the elevator. He hadn't let on to his sister how much sheer _rage_ he felt at almost all times. Every time someone bumped into him slightly on the walk down to the med bay, every time he even had a flicker of thought with batarians in it, every time he saw a Cerberus logo... He had to take deep breaths and force his biotics under control, had to fight to keep from lashing out. Whatever the scientists had been trying to accomplish with him in that facility, Matt knew that they had done more than just improve his biotics or make him faster and stronger. They had messed with his _head_, and he didn't know how screwed up he was on the inside.

But he needed to find out. For the first time in nearly twenty years, Matt had a choice in his fate besides how well he fought in the gladiatorial matches. And he was not going to have something that Cerberus had done to him change that. If they had implanted some sort of control chip in his brain, he needed to know so he could leave. Despite what he had said to Shepard, Matt would not put her in danger from him by staying by her side. He had lived without her for a long time, and could do so even more easily now that he knew she was not only alive and free, but relatively happy. No matter what, he would not let his sister be hurt by him or by anyone else. These collectors had killed his sister, and it was only because of Cerberus that she was with him today. For that, they were all dead men. And for that, Matt was willing to give the people on the ship with him a single chance, even the Cerberus officers. Even that 'Miranda'. Matt had to admit that his time spent with Jacob had influenced his feelings on the Cerberus personnel on the ship. Jacob had been nothing at all like Miranda, and had been more like Matt than he cared to admit, even to himself. It seemed that all kinds of people worked for Cerberus, though Matt couldn't understand how Jacob could overlook the sick experiments that Cerberus performed on people.

And Dr. Chakwas... Well Matt didn't know what to think of her. She had been with Shepard on the original Normandy, and Nicole had said that she had impeccable moral character, but Matt held a special place in hell just for doctors. Those working for Cerberus doubly so. The fact that she had only joined Cerberus to work for Shepard tempered those feelings somewhat, but Matt couldn't help that he was wary as he walked into the med bay.

The doctor swiveled around in her chair and stood. "Ah, Mr. Shepard. I wondered when you'd be coming by. Still some pain from your injuries, I'll expect. Let me take a look." Matt blinked. Though he hadn't really had the opportunity to meet Dr. Chakwas in their brief... encounter earlier he had not expected a doctor so similar to his mother. Perceptive and blunt, but not rude. It threw him off guard, and he managed to spit out a reply. "Just Matt, please. Or Matthew, if you insist on being formal. Shepard's my sister, not me." When Dr. Chakwas nodded, he said "And my wounds aren't that bad. Give me a day and I'll be just about back to normal. I came here for something else." Matt sighed and sat on the edge of one of the uncomfortable med bay cots. "I don't know how to put this delicately, so I'm just going to say it. Nicole trusts you, and I don't know any other doctors that I don't want to kill at the moment, so you're it. I don't know all of what Cerberus did to me, and I'd like to find out. Without my sister knowing."

Dr. Chakwas looked at Matt for a short while before speaking. "I will not lie to Commander Shepard. I owe her more than that, and as you said she trusts me. I won't betray that trust. But I won't volunteer the information unless she asks, and no one aboard this ship other than her could ever convince me to violate doctor-patient privacy." When Matt simply nodded she gestured towards a nearby machine and said "Then let's begin."


	5. Chapter 4

A/N: _Hey everyone! Sorry this one took a little longer than usual, RL got in the way as it is wont to do. One thing I've done in this chapter is spend some time on Jack as a character, simply because in the game she seems to be much more pointlessly shallow than she should be. Even Grunt has some depth to him, and he's a Krogan. Though she does develop emotionally near the end of ME2, this __only__ happens if you pursue a romance with her. Psychological scarring and survivor's guilt like Jack's don't just go away over the course of a week or two. And that's another thing I changed: the timeline. In ME2 the events take place very quickly, potentially within the span of a couple of weeks. While this is practical for a video game, it doesn't make sense for a suicide mission starting from scratch with little to no intel. So, I've been extending travel times to be more realistic, I'll probably make major missions take longer, stuff like that. Hope you enjoy!_

_P.S. Sorry about the false alarm, those who are watching this story on your favorites list. I noticed a few mistakes I had made with Chapter 3 and went back to fix it, but my computer was acting up so I eventually had to delete and then repost that chapter, so it acted like I had updated the story with a new chapter. Thanks to you guys who have favorited this story and those who are frequent fliers here!_

_**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Mass Effect, Commander Shepard, or any other original Mass Effect characters or concepts. Those belong to EA. My original characters and ideas, though? Those are mine.**_

Chapter 4

_Friday, March 4, 2185_

_Normandy SR-2 (Docked at the Citadel, Serpent Nebula, Widow System)_

Matt did his best to keep his face impassive as he watched the people in the briefing room with him. It was hard to tell what they were thinking: they were all soldiers at heart and thus kept their feelings locked away deep inside. Add to that the fact that Matt had been deprived of most contact with anyone for most of his life and you get the fact that Matt had no idea what they thought of him. The turian and salarian were, of course, inscrutable. Even the humans, though, had simple blank expressions on their faces. None of them knew what to make of Matt. Honestly, he didn't blame them. _Their commander's long lost brother found in a Cerberus lab as an experiment, and he's some sort of super-soldier or something? Yeah, I'd be a little freaked out myself. Hell, I __am__ freaked out. It's just in a good way._ And now Matt was a part of his little sister's mission to save the galaxy. Again.

The turian, Garrus Vakarian, was staring straight at Matt, and had been for the past ten minutes they had all been standing there. Matt was getting a little tired of it, and finally decided enough was enough. Though the guy had semi defended Matt the day before in the med-bay, his attitude of hostility towards Matt was getting on his nerves, and he got the feeling the turian had only said anything because it's what Shepard wanted. He raised his head from where it had been resting on the chest-plate of his armor and stared directly back into the guy's eyes. His sister had remarked on his strange appearance, and the morning after he first awoke was the first time Matt had been able to grab a look at himself in the mirror in a long time. The face that had stared back at him belonged to a stranger. There were the scars, of course, both from the Cerberus procedures and from battles long past. He had expected those. What he hadn't expected was the eyes. His eyes were a very disconcerting purple color rather different from the hazel eyes he remembered from his youth. Whatever Cerberus had done to him had apparently also involved his eyes, though he hadn't yet heard back from the good doctor what all they had done. So he held the turian's gaze for a solid three or four minutes, before snorting softly and shifting his attention to the only other alien on the ship.

Mordin Solus. A salarian doctor, or something. According to Shepard, he was a good person, had set up a clinic on Omega to help people and was working on a way to combat the collector swarms so they could take down the bastards. The scars on his face from his work with the STG, and his affable mannerisms made Mordin rather distinctive when compared to other salarians, at least as far as Matt knew. Matt hadn't had time to talk to Mordin since the hasty introduction in the med-bay the day before, and so hadn't had the opportunity to develop much of a personal opinion on the man. From what he could tell Mordin knew how to handle himself in a firefight or in a surgery, or in a university for that matter. He seemed friendly enough, and genuinely seemed to care about the mission succeeding because it was for the good of the galaxy. At the moment the guy was furiously typing away at a datapad he held in his hands and muttering to himself. The snatches of it Matt was able to catch had something to do with the Collector swarms: apparently he hadn't quite developed the countermeasure yet.

The two Cerberus officers, Miranda Lawson and Jacob Taylor, were only given the attention that it took to watch them for any aggressive moves. As far as Matt was concerned Cerberus wasn't people, and if the two of them wanted to work for it and be party to what it did they could go fuck themselves. Though, Jacob wasn't as bad as Matt had thought. He had a stick up his ass whenever he was around Shepard or Miranda, but during the time Matt had been fitted for his armor in the armory he had actually been rather pleasant. Said he didn't agree with a lot of what Cerberus did but that they were the only ones willing to do something to protect humanity. Apparently Jacob had butted heads with the boss of Cerberus on that sort of issue in the past. That he had kept his job was a testament to his skills. The armor he had found for Matt was top-of-the-line, Alliance-issue infiltration gear. It had been, though, heavily modified by Jacob to fit Matt's fighting style. The stealth capabilities had been removed, and the shield had been strengthened with the extra power that freed up. The helmet had been modified to allow for greater freedom of movement and field of view, and sheaths had been added for Matt's weapons. The armor itself was very strong and light, though by no means as durable as the other, heavier armors. It only added about fifty pounds to Matt, which was nothing he couldn't get used to with time.

Matt had heard from his sister all about this Jack person, but hadn't yet met her. She hadn't been in the room when he had arrived, and hadn't yet come in. Sounded like they had quite a bit in common, at least as far as the rage and hatred for Cerberus went, but while Jack seemed to have no outlet but simple violence Matt had Nicole to ground him in what mattered. He wasn't sure how she would react to him, nor was he sure how he should react to her. It didn't really matter, though, if she never showed up. Matt sighed and set the helmet he had been holding in his hand on the table in the center of the room, and cracked his knuckles loudly, just to give his hands something to do. Miranda winced at the sound and glared at him for a moment, but Matt just ignored her. The Cerberus lapdog could bite him.

When Shepard finally arrived after several more minutes of uncomfortable silence she had a frown on her face and there was a haggard look in her eyes. It didn't take a genius to guess that the commander hadn't slept last night, or at least hadn't slept well. She took a quick look around the room and nodded at each person as her gaze slid over them, even managing a smile for Garrus and Matt. Her frown quickly returned, however, when she noticed that Jack wasn't at the gathering. "Where's Jack?" Her voice rang out, with the overtones of command laced through the question. It was immediately obvious that Shepard was viewing the trip to the Citadel as business only, and business that she wanted nothing to do with. When nobody replied, she slapped her hand over her face, wincing a little at the pain of armor on flesh. "Alright then. Will someone go find her? She usually hangs out below engineering, but.." Matt looked over to see Garrus open his mouth, but smirked and called out "I'll get her. Won't be but a moment." before the turian could say more than "I-" At the look thrown his way Matt returned a smile. Matt needed the excuse to visit belowdecks without his sister wondering where he had gone, and a long search for a psycho biotic freakshow was the perfect one.

Shepard nodded at Matt and muttered a quick thanks before turning to face the rest of the group. Matt gave her shoulder a quick pat as he left, and he walked down the hall and through the armory to the elevator. As he left the armory door into the CIC, however, he did his best to walk quietly and unobtrusively to the elevator. Matt was hoping to avoid Yeoman Kelly Chambers as best he could: Shepard had told him that Kelly had the habit of picking up people as if they were stray dogs. Also, she was Cerberus, and he had no desire for them to go poking about inside his head ever again. Luckily, she wasn't at her usual post and he made it to the elevator with nothing more than a few glances his way from some crewmen. Once inside the elevator, however, he did not press the button for the fourth deck. Instead he pressed the button for deck three, and walked swiftly to the med bay when he arrived.

Dr. Chakwas was sitting at her desk when Matt arrived and she swiveled it around to face the door as he walked in. "Ah, Matthew. I wondered when you would be stopping by. Though aren't you supposed to report to the briefing room?" Matt nodded, and said "Yeah, but Shepard sent me out to find Jack and I figured that was as good an opportunity as any to see what you got for me. That said, I don't have too much time so give me the short version if you can. Explain it in as simple a way as you can manage." Dr. Chakwas nodded, and turned to her desk to retrieve a datapad from a locked drawer, and turned it on. After reading a few lines, she nodded her head and said "Ah, yes, here we are. First things first, a list. I'll explain them all if you have questions. Your eyes have been replaced with cybernetics, reflex speed gene mod, strength gene mod, endurance gene mod, a strange mod that seems to have some base in Krogan genetic material, that one's very unstable, bones have been strengthened with some sort of support structure, toughened skin, and a L5 implant like Shepard's. Your implant, however, is much larger than hers is and is pressing in on your globus pallidus a little. There have been some studies that say that the globus pallidus is related to the frequency of bipolar disorder, but I don't know how this will affect that. All of the gene mods you received were not Cerberus or Alliance standard mods, and I don't know exactly how much they have changed you yet. It will take quite a long time, honestly, to analyze the data we collected from you yesterday. For now, that is all I can tell you."

Matt stood still for a few moments, silently taking in all he had heard. "Well," he said slowly, being careful not to betray the rage that was slowly building inside of him, "That's not as bad as I had feared. I was afraid they'd turned me into some sort of inhuman monster or something... Though what I can't understand is why they'd switch out my eyes? I haven't noticed any differences."

Dr. Chakwas simply shrugged. "I can't guess as to their motives for any of this. I can only give you the facts. But from the little I was able to glean in the preliminary scans, there are several features hidden in your cybernetics that are locked down at the moment. I can see if I can figure out what those features might be with some further investigation, but I am no computer programmer or hacker. I have only limited knowledge of those sorts of things." Matt nodded once, sharply, and said "I understand. I probably won't be able to stop by again for a little while. I've a feeling that we're going to be pretty busy for at least the next couple of days." At Dr. Chakwas' nod, Matt stood and left the Med-bay, headed for the elevator to actually begin his search for Jack.

Jack smirked as she looked down at the man below her. Though she was by no means the stealthiest person in the galaxy, and usually preferred just charging headfirst into battle with her biotics leading the way, she knew well enough that a little sneaking around could be useful once in a while. And fun. There were a lot of things that Jack felt were fun. Killing, getting high, sex, scaring the shit out of people... Those were all on the list. That guy thought he had it so bad? That being a gladiator for a little while and then being with Cerberus for two years was horrific? Jack had been through horrific in her twelve years in Cerberus' hands, and knew that if the pussy walking slowly below her had endured half of the things she had that he would have been dead. That's just how it worked.

She was about to give the guy the fright of his life, just to put him in his place. The guy comes down to _her _space, obviously trying to get her to go do that damn meeting when she had been _trying_ to make a point to Shepard that she was not a personal attack dog. The only person who got to tell Jack what to do was Jack, and sometimes Jack didn't even listen then. She'd had enough of being someone's experiment, and though Shepard seemed smart enough not to fuck with her, Jack wanted to be sure. Why the hell did that chick want everyone to meet in the briefing room anyways? It's not like they were heading down to a mission or anything, and it's not like anyone was going to try anything against a few heavily armed soldiers in the middle of the Citadel. Jack figured it was just a way to show her control over the group, and Jack would be damned before she submitted to that shit.

The man continued walking, and passed by under Jack, and made his way over to the cot where she usually hung out. Sometimes she slept there, but it was hard to find sleep on a Cerberus ship. Hell, even in Purgatory Jack had slept rather well, at least before they had put her in the cryo sleep isolation cell Shepard had released her from. Not like anyone had tried to mess with Jack after that first guy. She smiled at the memory. The _still_ hadn't found all of the pieces of him when she got moved into isolation. Then Jack's face stilled, and her muscles tensed for the jump. She was just going to scare the guy, not going to try and hurt him. Much. She wouldn't do anything permanent. Probably.

Matt cursed and kicked the cot in front of him. Though he had known how unlikely it was that Jack would just be waiting for him there, he had hoped to find her quickly. Nevermind the fact that he had to duck under three low bulkheads and shimmy sideways through a gap between Mass Effect core components. Matt had no way of knowing about the maintenance shafts that Jack used to get to her hidey hole, and so he was stuck forging through the obvious way, making enormous amounts of noise as his armor scraped and banged through small spaces and tight squeezes. If she hadn't known that Matt was coming, she certainly did now. _Damn_, Matt thought, _Sis told me that Jack was a little introverted and had said she didn't want thru traffic, but this is just too much. How the hell does she even get out? I guess she doesn't wear armor, but I've not the time to change out, find her, and change back. Nikki's in a rush for some reason. Just not looking forward to the meeting with Anderson and the Council, I guess. Politics._

He sighed, and took a quick look around, hoping against hope that Jack would be around, but knowing his search would be fruitless. By now the only person who probably knew the crooks and crannies of the Normandy SR-2 better than Jack was Joker, and it's not like he could get up and search them. And in armor, neither could Matt. Hell, he probably wouldn't even fit in a lot of the places even without armor. Nothing really he could do. _Though,_ he thought suddenly, a wave of inspiration hitting him, _I could go ask the AI if it knew where Jack was! Probably save me a lot of time if it does._ Nodding slightly to himself, Matt turned and began to make his way back the way he came, when something above him caught his eye. It was just a glimmer of metal in the darkness, something not uncommon on a ship, but as he stared at it _something_ happened. Suddenly the black peeled away, almost as if he could see in the dark, and he saw, crouched above him, Jack. He opened his mouth to say something, when his vision jerked back to normal and a burning pain lanced through his skull. It was more intense than anything he had ever experienced before: it felt as if his head was being covered in molten lead. He couldn't even muster the effort to cry out, he just collapsed to the floor and held his head, whimpering softly as the pain rolled through him in waves. As the pain slowly ebbed away, he heard a soft thump behind him, and a chuckle. Then he felt the rage start to come to him, the glorious blinding anger that had sustained him for so long. He fought it at first, confused, still in pain, and scared, but he soon gave in, hoping to wash away the pain.

He heard a soft clank to his right, and the whisper of approaching clothing. Someone was coming! Trying to off him in his moment of weakness! Matt growled loudly, a deep, chest-rumbling sound that slowly built in intensity alongside his rage until he could hold it back no longer.

Jack had been watching Matt take a quick gander around her space, when suddenly the guy had stared right at her. Even then she didn't move, knowing she would be all but invisible in the darkness. But then something in his face changed, and those slightly glowing purple eyes bored into her own like he could _see_ her. Then the pussy fell to the ground, clutching his head. _Aww,_ she thought, _baby Shepard's got a migrane? I know the __perfect__ cure._ She dropped lightly next to him, and took a few steps forward, reaching her hand out to grab at the collar of his armor. The guy seemed almost incapacitated by the pain, and thus Jack was extremely surprised when he suddenly roared out and charged into her, knocking her into a bulkhead hard enough that the breath rushed out of her with a whuump! Jack was surprised, and though it took only a moment for her to recover she saw the glint of a blade heading straight for her head! Almost panicking, she lashed out with a hasty biotic shockwave and managed to knock the dangerously sharp blade flying. "Dude!" She managed to choke out before his left hand closed on her throat, armor cold against her skin. His right was pulled back, and he slammed it into her face solidly. Again and again he hammered Jack, ignoring her attempts to pull his fingers away from her throat: his grip was as iron, and Jack's actual physical strength was nothing compared to his. Any normal person would have been a mess of mangled flesh and bone at that point, but Jack was managing to absorb most of the force of Matt's punches with hastily erected biotic fields. Even so, bruises were cropping up on her face and she was pretty sure her nose was broken. And Jack could feel herself weakening with each strike, aided as they were by biotics themselves.

Matt was in a blind rage, unable to tell where he was. Batarian slave arena? Cerberus testing lab? It didn't matter: there was an enemy in his grasp, and he was going to kill it. Nevermind that there were alarm bells ringing in the back of his head, nevermind that there was something wrong with the surrounding sounds... He wouldn't let them get the better of him. Not that day, not ever. He raised his hand for what he was sure would be the final blow, when a voice trickled it's way through his rage and caused him to pause. When he did, he was flung into the opposite wall by biotics. Hard, too, but the armor protected him from anything more than slight bruises. He sprang up, and drew his left-handed tonblade, not knowing where the other one had gotten to. Then the voice rang out again, and he shook his head, slowly beginning to clear his head. A few seconds later, he heard "Matt! Matt dammit stop it! Fight it! Calm down! Matt please!" He recognized that voice, he knew who that was. It was Nicole, his sister. She rescued him... took him from Cerberus! He was free, he didn't have to fight!

The haze of rage slipped from Matt's sight, and he saw before him a very beat up, very pissed off Jack charging him with a biotic punch! He quickly rolled out of the way, and was knocked to the ground when the force of the punch slammed into the wall. "Wait! Jack, I'm fine it's done! I wasn't myself!" Jack stopped charging at Matt, and looked at him with a sneer on her face for a few seconds. "Fine." She bit out. She walked to Matt and held out her hand to help him up. Surprised and grateful, Matt reached out to accept the help. He felt himself being pulled up by Jack, but then the next thing he knew he was back on the ground, pain burning in his face and blood streaming from his nose. "There. Now we're even. Get your own damn pussy ass off the floor. Hurry up, too. Ain't you gonna be late for the tea party?" Then she leapt into the maintenance ducts above, and scampered off. Matt sighed, and quickly reset his nose, suppressing a grunt at the sharp pain.

Matt sat there for a few moments, wondering what the hell kind of person _was_ Jack, and as he stood he firmly decided that next time, the turian could get her. He'd like to see Jack beat the hell out of him. Or maybe he should ask his sister to set up a fight between the Cerberus officer, Miranda, and Jack. Now that, that'd be something to see.

Shepard paced in the briefing room, worry clearly etched into the lines on her face. She didn't know what was taking so long, Matt probably should have found Jack by now. Unless Jack was diliberately hiding instead of just being late on purpose, Matt would simply have to head down to engineering and check out her hidey hole. It shouldn't have been a long trip. After a few more minutes of her pacing, she heard a gravely chuckle emanate from behind her, and a three-fingered hand descended to rest on her shoulder. "Spirits, Shepard, slow down. You'll wear a track in the floor. He's fine. You know how Jack is. Probably hiding in a vent or something."

Shepard nodded slowly, then turned to face Garrus. "Yeah, Garrus, I know what Jack's like. And that's what worries me. Matt and her are so similar now... I should have sent you. What if-" Shepard cut off as a light beep indicated that EDI had appeared on the console. "Commander Shepard, there is an altercation between your brother and Subject Zero taking place belowdecks. Would you like me to show you?" Shepard cursed, loudly, in three human languages and in quarian, and then shook her head. "No, just patch me through the PA in that area." When EDI indicated that it had done so, Shepard said loudly and clearly "Matt, what's going on!" When there was no response, she repeated "Matt, are you okay?" Again, no response. "Matt! Matt dammit stop it! Fight it! Calm down! Matt please!" After a few seconds, EDI said "It seems that they have resolved the conflict. Subject Zero is making her way towards the briefing room, as is Mr. Shepard. No major injuries."

Shepard sighed with relief, and tried to ignore the looks Miranda and Jacob were giving her. Mordin was only partially listening to what was going on, from the looks of it, and Garrus' eyes held only sympathy, but both Miranda and Jacob looked like they had something to say. "Thank you, EDI. Dismissed." Edi said "Logging you out." and disappeared. Shepard walked slowly across the room so that her back was to the wall and she was facing the door, with Mordin on her right and Jacob on her left. Garrus was next to the door on the right, and Miranda was standing at the head of the table. Miranda looked at Shepard sharply and said "See, Shepard, this is what I was talking about. He's dangerous, and he can't even moderately control himself. At least Jack has some semblance of restraint. Your brother _attacked_ her, went into a rage of some sort. At the very least, you should have him confined to quarters." Shepard glared at Miranda, and then shook her head slowly. "No, I don't think so. Knowing Jack, it's more likely that _she _attacked _him_, not the other way around. I appreciate your concern for the crew, really, but I have this under control."

_I hope._

_A/N: Whew! I was originally planning to go through the whole Citadel sequence this chapter, but decided that Jack needed a little introduction. Even though you all know the characters, I'm sure, I'll be doing them in my own way and as such I feel they need a little opening blurb for them. Citadel and Kasumi next chapter, I promise!_


End file.
